Frank Hogan & Arthur Boyle (Goodnight, My Love)

Created by Peter Hyams

Goodnight My Love (1972) was a well done little private eye flick made for television, not quite The Maltese Falcon spoof it claims, but still a lotta fun.

A scruffy, down at his heels detective, FRANK HOGAN (played by the very tall Richard Boone) and his partner, a literate, well-dressed dwarf, ARTHUR BOYLE, are hired by a naive blonde (Barbara Bain) to track down her wayward boyfriend in the seamy underworld of 1946 Los Angeles. Good script, excellent direction, supposedly. But don’t take my word for it. Check out what Dick Lochte, who actually saw it, says below.

Boone, of course, made his P.I. bones years earlier, playing Paladin on Have Gun, Will Travel. And, of course, he was pretty good as bad guy Lash Canino in the ill-fated 1978 remake of The Big Sleep.

UNDER OATH

“Peter Hyams directed and wrote this original private eye movie set in postwar 40s Los Angeles with Richard Boone and Michael Dunne as down on their luck PIs. It opens with a beautiful tracking shot of a nightclub (owned by Victor Buono) with singer wailing. Many consider it the Chinatown of the small screen, with good reason.”— Dick Lochte on Rara-Avis

“Goodnight, My Love is something else. Trashy, sleazy and militantly oddball, it also offers some unexpected fun… Written and produced by Peter Hyams, the film offers a soiled Valentine to every private‐eye cliché minted during the forties…a bit strange for television. It is also, for the most part, delightful.”— The New York Times